by Lars H On a recent trip to Austin, I ran into Austin Java by accident when I saw it as I drove past in while going down Menchaca Road. …
by Lars H I live in north Texas, but I was recently in Austin visiting some family and stopped by the locally famous Mozart Coffee Roasters shop on the shore …
by Lars H
I recently saw a TA truck stop on I-35 when I was driving from Denton to Dallas, so I stopped in to check out the coffee situation. Here’s what I found.
TA uses Bunn commercial coffee machines, as well as a Bunn grinder where they grind the beans just before brewing. Grinding just before you brew gives you a fresher, better tasting coffee because ground coffee can lose its flavor pretty quickly. This was a good sign!
by Lars Hundley Lately I’ve been visiting gas stations near me that ranked highly in GasBuddy’s rankings of best gas station coffee by state. Turns out there was a QuikTrip …
by Lars H
Recently I was up in north Dallas for an appointment, and after I finished, I did a quick Google map search to see if there were any nearby coffee shops I had not yet tried. That’s when PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans popped up on the map, just a couple of miles away from where I was.
I’d never heard of PJ’s Coffee before, and learned it was a franchise that was founded in New Orleans in 1978.
When I arrived, it appeared to heavily promote its drive through window, suggesting that it gets a lot of regular customers who are on their way to work or just on the go. I parked and walked inside, where there were several customers drinking coffee and sitting at the various tables.
QUESTION: Does 7-11 have decaf coffee? There’s one on the way home from work and sometimes I like to drink a decaf in the afternoons instead of regular coffee. – Will G
CLEARLY COFFEE REPLIES: Yes, 7-11 serves fresh decaf coffee at most locations! I drove to one near me to check the situation out and bought one to taste it.
One thing that I noticed is that the grind and brew machine did not have a decaf option. However, they did have it in the regular Bunn commercial machines. I grabbed one at about 10 a.m. and it was hot and fresh.
by Lars H You’ve probably heard of Swiss water decaffeinated coffee, but have you heard of MC decaffeinated? Perhaps it will seem more familiar if I tell you that MC …
by Lars H
I was recently burned TWICE on Amazon, fooled into purchasing what seemed to be very reasonably priced bags of Kona whole bean coffee.
Instead of buying bags of 100 percent coffee beans that are Kona, it turned out that I had purchased bags of coffee that were really just blends that had a small or unstated percentage of Kona beans, mixed with other coffee beans grown elsewhere.
QUESTION: My wife will only drink organic coffee because she says it’s healthier. Is she right? Is organic coffee healthier? — Evan K.
CLEARLY COFFEE REPLIES: Yes, organic coffee is without a doubt healthier for you than conventional coffee. Let’s take a look at all the ways that organic coffee wins out when it comes to healthiness.
The organic farming standards that organic coffee is held to require a limited use of synthetic chemicals and restricted use of herbicides, pesticides, and artificial fertilizers. Because the soil doesn’t contain synthetic chemicals, organic coffee is likely to contain more vitamins and nutrients than conventional coffee.
by Lars H
While I was recently doing some research on instant coffees, I learned about Dripkit, which was coincidentally listed in some places as an instant coffee. Indeed, all you need is hot water and a cup to make it.
But Dripkit isn’t freeze dried coffee like a true instant coffees. It’s regular ground coffee that’s in a ready-to-go cardboard and paper pour over device that you rip open, unfold, and sit over your cup. Next, you pour hot water from a pot, tea kettle or gooseneck coffee kettle over the grounds and wait for it to make your coffee.
So it’s just as convenient as instant coffee except that it’s real, brewed coffee that you can take with you and quickly make anywhere you can get hot water and a coffee cup.
